‘Yes, that’s a fact,’ agreed Panteley.
‘As I sees it, I’m done for – and that’s that!’
Just then Vasya happened to catch sight of Yegorushka. His eyes glittered and seemed to grow even smaller.
‘So, we’ve a young gent driving with us!’ he said, hiding his nose in his sleeve as if overcome with shyness. ‘Looks like a real tip-top driver! Now, you stay with us so’s you can ride with the wagons and cart wool around!’
The thought of gentleman and wagon driver being combined in one and the same person must have struck him as most bizarre and witty, since he produced a loud titter and continued to develop the idea. Yemelyan also glanced up at Yegorushka, but cursorily and coldly. He was engrossed in his own thoughts and had it not been for Vasya he wouldn’t even have noticed Yegorushka. Barely five minutes passed before he began waving his arms again. Then, as he described for his fellow travellers the beauty of the wedding anthem ‘Lord have mercy’ which he had remembered during the night, he placed his whip under his arm and began to conduct with both hands.
About a mile from the village the wagon train stopped by a well with a sweep. Lowering his pail into the well, black-bearded Kiryukha lay stomach-first on the framework and thrust his shaggy head, his shoulders and part of his chest into the dark hole so that Yegorushka could see only his short legs that barely touched the ground. When he saw the reflection of his head far below at the bottom of the well he was so overjoyed that he broke into peals of inane, cavernous laughter, echoed by the well. When he stood up, his face and neck were as red as a lobster. The first to run up for a drink was Dymov. He laughed as he drank, frequently turning away from the pail to tell Kiryukha something funny. Then he cleared his throat and produced five swear words loud enough for the whole steppe to hear. Yegorushka had no idea what they meant, but that they were bad he knew very well. He was aware of the silent revulsion his friends and relations felt for them. Without knowing why, he himself shared their feelings and had come to believe that only drunks and rowdies enjoyed the privilege of shouting such words out loud. He remembered the killing of the grass-snake, listened to Dymov’s laughter and felt something akin to loathing for that man. As ill luck would have it, at that moment Dymov caught sight of Yegorushka, who had climbed down from his wagon and was walking towards the well.
‘Looks like the old gaffer’s given birth in the night!’ he shouted, laughing out loud. ‘It’s a boy!’
Kiryukha choked with deep laughter. Someone else started laughing, too, but Yegorushka only blushed and finally concluded that Dymov was a very evil person.
With his bare head, light curly hair and unbuttoned shirt Dymov looked handsome and exceptionally strong. Every movement he made revealed a trouble-maker and a bully who knew his own worth. He flexed his shoulders, put hands on hips and laughed louder than the others, looking as if he were about to lift a colossal weight and thereby astonish the whole world. His wild, mocking look slid over the road, the wagons and the sky, settling nowhere, and he seemed to be looking for something else to kill – for want of anything better to do and just for a good laugh. Obviously he feared no one, would stop at nothing and probably couldn’t have cared less what Yegorushka thought. But Yegorushka hated his fair head, his clean-cut face and his strength with all his heart, listened with fear and revulsion to his laughter and tried to think of some insult to fling at him by way of revenge.
Panteley also went over to the pail. He took a green lamp-glass from his pocket, wiped it with a cloth, dipped it into the pail and drank from it; then, after scooping some more water, he wrapped it in the cloth and put it back in his pocket.
‘Why are you drinking from a lamp, grandpa?’ Yegorushka asked in astonishment.
‘There’s some that drinks from buckets, others from lamps,’ the old man replied evasively. ‘Each to his own… if you likes to drink from a bucket then go ahead and drink your fill…’
‘You little darling, you beauty!’ Vasya suddenly said in a tender, plaintive voice. ‘Oh, you little darling!’
His eyes glittered and smiled as he stared into the distance and his face took on the same expression as before, when he was looking at Yegorushka.
‘Who are you talking to?’ asked Kiryukha.
‘It’s a vixen… she’s lying on her back, playing like a little dog.’
They all peered into the distance, searching for the vixen, but they could see nothing. Only Vasya, with those small, lacklustre grey eyes of his, was able to see anything and he was in raptures. As Yegorushka discovered later, his sight was amazingly keen – so keen that the desolate brown steppe was always full of life and content for him. He had only to look into the distance to see a fox, hare, great bustard or some other living creature that shunned human beings. To spot a fleeing hare or a bustard in flight is easy – anyone who has travelled the steppe has seen them – but it is not given to everyone to see wild creatures in their domestic habitat, when they are not running, hiding or looking around in alarm. But Vasya could see vixens at play, hares washing their paws, great bustards preening themselves, little bustards doing their courtship dance. Thanks to his keen vision, for Vasya there was another world – his own special world that was inaccessible to everyone else and which was no doubt absolutely delightful, for whenever he looked and went into raptures it was difficult not to envy him.
When the wagons moved on the church bells were ringing for morning service.
V
The wagon train drew up on a river bank at the side of the village. The sun was as fiery as yesterday and the air stagnant and cheerless. A few willows stood on the bank – their shadows did not fall on the ground but on the water, where they were wasted, while in the shade under the wagons it was stifling and oppressive. Azure from the reflected sky, the water eagerly beckoned.
The driver Styopka, an eighteen-year-old Ukrainian lad of whom Yegorushka was taking notice only now, in a long shirt without any belt and wearing over his boots wide trousers that fluttered like flags as he walked, quickly threw off his clothes, raced down the steep slope and plunged into the water. After diving about three times he floated on his back, his eyes blissfully closed. His face smiled and became wrinkled, as if he were being tickled, hurt and amused all at the same time.
On hot days when there is no escape from the sultry, stifling heat the splash of water and a swimmer’s loud breathing are music to the ears. Dymov and Kiryukha took one look at Styopka, quickly undressed, laughed loud with anticipated pleasure and tumbled into the water one after the other. That quiet, humble stream resounded with snorting, splashing and shouting. Kiryukha coughed and laughed as if the others were trying to drown him. Dymov chased him and tried to grab his leg.
‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘Catch him! Hold him!’
Kiryukha was laughing and enjoying himself, but his expression was the same as on dry land: stupid and stunned, as if someone had sneaked up from behind and clubbed him with an axe butt. Yegorushka undressed, too, but instead of sliding down the bank he took a flying jump from a height of about ten feet. Having described an arc in the air he hit the water and sank deep – but he did not touch the bottom, since some strange power that was cool and pleasant to the touch caught hold of him and brought him back to the surface. Blowing bubbles and snorting, he came up and opened his eyes, but the sun was reflected in the river close to his face. First blinding sparks, then rainbows and dark patches darted before his eyes. Hurriedly he dived again, opened his eyes under the water and saw something dull green, like the sky on a moonlit night. Once again that power brought him up, stopping him reaching the bottom and staying in the cool. As he surfaced he breathed a sigh so deep that he had a sensation of great spaciousness and freshness not only in his chest but even in his stomach. And then, to make the most of the water, he indulged in every luxury: he lay on his back and basked, splashed, turned somersaults, swam on his stomach, his side, his back, and standing up, just as the mood took him, until he grew tired. The opposite bank, golden in the sunlight, was thickly overgrown with reeds and their beautiful clusters of flowers leaned towards the water. In one place the reeds shook and lowered their flowers with a dry crackling – Stepan and Kiryukha were ‘tickling’ crayfish.